Page 44 of Brawler
She gavehim the privacy of dressing, turning her back as if the simple act might steady her. Everything had been chaos since the moment she’d collided with him, terrifying, insane, bad, and good all at once. Yet in the middle of that storm, he made her want to rebel. Against fear. Against the ties that had bound her to a life stripped gray, all the color washed away when Dani died. She’d been blind since then, color-blind, hope-blind, blind to herself. Now, all at once, she was seeing again.
Because of him.
He had saved her life. Twice. He was temptation carved in muscle and sinew and bone, the feel of his hands still seared into her skin. Yes, there was lust. She couldn’t lie to herself about that, but it wasn’t just that. Not anymore.
He had retreated, and that left her unsettled. There had been connection. She had felt it as surely as the bruise blooming across her hips. So why was he gone, and why was she standing here aching for him, body and heart both?
The jungle clung to her skin, damp earth in her hair, the echo of violence thudding in her chest. She had just watched Brawler strip himself bare. Not with words, not entirely, but with the wayhe stood before her as though he had nothing left to hide. That kind of courage made her breath falter.
Had she ever been that brave? Or had she been retreating all these years, mistaking penance for purpose?
She’d hidden in her dissertation, poured herself into datasets and camera traps because numbers didn’t leave, equations didn’t crack their heads and die. Ben had been a placeholder, a man who would never ask her to risk her heart. She had let that feel safe.
But Christian Beckett, big, beautiful, maddening Christian, had cracked her wide open without even trying.
She read between the lines of his silences, the weight behind his humor, the dog that never left his side. He was unraveling in front of her, yet somehow still holding steady for everyone else. Vulnerability had never looked so good on a man, and it made her ashamed of how much she had hidden from herself.
Since Dani died, she had lived without joy, without risk, without love. A self-imposed exile from happiness because she thought that was her punishment.
Shame burned, hot and sudden. Had she been a coward all this time? Wasn’t true courage the willingness to feel, to risk, to live?
She turned just enough to glimpse his retreating back, his armor already back on, his purpose redrawn. She waded from the pool, crouched by her pack, and pulled out her toiletries. Stripping fully, she winced at the mottled bruise across her waist and hip. Ugly. Painful. Worth every ounce of discomfort. She thought back to the cliff rescue, how hard he had fought to keep his weight off her even as he held her life in his hands.
That man had integrity in spades. Steadiness. Humor slipping through the cracks of his stone face. Dedication that made her want to stand taller. Beneath it all, a hunger, untamed, unhidden, that called to her own.
She cleaned her top and underwear, but when she got to her pants, she emptied out the pockets and froze when she got to that strange fin-like scrap she’d found before those men had chased her. Again, she turned it over in her hands, but still had no idea what it was.
She set it aside, then laid everything out in the patch of sunlight where heat pressed down like a blessing. Then she returned to the pool and submerged herself, sliding into the deep end where water cascaded in a clear, clean drop.
She lathered herself, scrubbed hard, scouring away sweat, grime, blood. The waterfall poured over her shoulders and crown, beating against her skin until it felt like it was driving straight through to her bones. Each rivulet carried away dirt and fear, swirling downstream as if the jungle itself wanted to rinse her clean.
She tipped her face into the cascade, breath caught, the rush of water closing her eyes, stealing her air for a heartbeat. A shiver tore through her as memory flickered, Dani, still at another pool, the silence that had haunted her ever since. For years, water had meant loss. Now, it felt like absolution, that weight pressing her down even as it lightened her, counterbalancing the guilt she had carried for so long.
Emily Shade wanted to anchor him the way he anchored everyone else. To meet his bravery with her own. To stop running, stop punishing herself, stop settling for scraps when what she craved was this, connection, risk, the terrifying possibility of joy.
For the first time since Dani, she felt like she deserved to not only be loved, but to love.
But could her self-imposed exile truly end? Could she allow herself to find happiness after her punishing penance, or did it all hinge on understanding her grief and forgiving herself forthat single moment’s pleasure that had ended in her sister’s tragedy?
Still unsettledby what had happened at the pool, he couldn’t be near her and not want her. So he’d taken Beast and pushed into the trees for a perimeter check, trying to bleed off the restless hum under his skin.
By the time they returned, he expected to shoulder the work. But inside the cave, a compact tent stood pitched neatly on the other side of the waterfall wall. A stack of firewood waited beside a small pit she’d dug under the gap in the stone ceiling.
His gut tightened. “Emily?”
No answer.
Cold spread through him. He scanned the pool, empty, except for the clothes she’d been wearing. His breath slammed to a stop.
“Goddammit.” He stalked out, voice rough. “Beast. Emily. Track.”
The Malinois dropped his nose and took off, Brawler right behind him, boots chewing through damp earth. The trail was obvious—snapped fronds, churned soil, brush shoved aside. His pulse pounded harder with every step until something red flared in the sun.
Relief buckled his knees.
Her hair. Loose, brilliant, flowing in the breeze like a banner. Beneath it, damn. A blue top clung to her breasts and ribs, khaki shorts cutting high over freckled thighs. Heat shot low and hard, staggering in its intensity. He must be an idiot, because freckles, fucking freckles, had no business turning him on this much.
“Emily!” His voice cracked out, harsh, raw, half agonized.
